When diagnosing a sample, it is often required to reach a significant conclusion with respect to the sample's contents. Biological samples, such as semen, vaginal secretions, vaginal cells, blood, urine, saliva, lymph and the like, are commonly tested at the field, with portable apparatuses, tools or disposable diagnostics, or in laboratories. Laboratory work, including field work, often requires taking a portion of the sample, processing it in various ways using laboratory operations and finally assessing a result. Laboratory medicine commonly includes anatomic pathology histopathology, cytopathology, microscopy, clinical microbiology, bacteriology, virology, parasitology, immunology, mycology, clinical biochemistry instrumental analysis, enzymology, toxicology, endocrinology and hematology.
Over the past years, automated analyzers became more and more common in laboratories. An automated analyzer is often defined as a medical laboratory instrument designed to rapidly measure different chemicals and other characteristics in a samples, with minimal human assistance. The automation of laboratory testing does not usually remove the need for human expertise (as some results must still be evaluated by medical technologists and other qualified clinical laboratory professionals, and sometimes manual processing is required), but it does ease concerns about error reduction, staffing concerns and safety.
Applicant's U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/981,856, filed Oct. 23, 2007, discloses a diagnostic device. This application is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.